Kremlin recipe for avoiding leaks: use typewriters

MOSCOW (AP) — Got an old typewriter in your garage? Call the Kremlin, they need some.

Russia's Federal Protective Service, a KGB successor agency in charge of protecting President Vladimir Putin and his officials, has placed an order for 20 typewriters and is ready to pay $750 each for them, according to Thursday's report in Izvestia.

The Kremlin-connected daily said the agency, known by its Russian acronym FSO, believes it's necessary to expand the use of typewriters following disclosures of sweeping U.S. National Security Agency surveillance programs by leaker Edward Snowden and earlier publication of classified documents by secret-spilling website WikiLeaks.

It said that typewriters have been used in particular for printing drafts of some official documents and reports presented to Putin.